When Cannon Cobb heard the word “bungalow,” he breathed a sigh of relief.

The eighth grader from Pottsville Junior High stood on the stage at the Pope County Spelling Bee, he and one other student — Ryan Morris, a sixth grader from Dover — the only ones left in the competition.

He had felt nervous throughout the night, probably because he’d been here before. In sixth grade, he placed second in the competition; last year he didn’t place, misspelling the word “souvenir” early in the bee.

“I felt just like, ‘oh, I might not win just like I did in sixth grade. I’m going to get runner-up again,’” Cobb said. “I was worried.”

Additionally, this would be his last year of eligibility. If he didn’t win it this year, he wouldn’t have another chance.

But Morris had just missed a word, and all that stood between Cobb and the Pope County Spelling Bee trophy was the word “bungalow.”

Cobb was surprised to hear the word. He had studied a list of difficult words in preparation for the bee, preparation which didn’t pay off.

“All those hard words I studied, they weren’t on there,” he said. “Then there were some extra words that I didn’t remember studying.”

But Cobb found the words easier than he expected, although he did have to spell “salubrious” earlier in the night. He was overjoyed to hear the word “bungalow”: it was a word he knew.

“I was happy, because I knew I could spell it,” he said.

He spelled it correctly, and Cobb was crowned the 2013 Pope County Spelling Bee Champion, the first Pottsville student ever to win the award.

“I thought, ‘I won. I won. I get to go to state,’” he said. “I finally began to understand how big this is.”

But he said Donna Stobaugh, the Pottsville Junior High’s librarian who has helped influence Cobb, was the most excited of all.

“She started screaming about it and getting all happy,” he said. “She’s the most happy of them all. She tried to covet my trophy and keep it.”

The first-place trophy Cobb received symbolizes countless hours of practice and preparation, which saw him studying an average of two hours a day. The county gave him a list of words to study, and to memorize their spellings he would write each word down three times before his dad would quiz him. If he missed a word, he would write it down six times instead of three.

This practice hammered the words into his head, words that stayed in his mind long after he finished studying.

“I’d be going to bed, and I would just be trying to go to sleep, and just random words would start flying through my head that I’d studied for however long,” he said.

But words are Cobb’s passion. His favorite subject is English, and he spends most of his free time reading and writing. He writes fantasy, horror, and science fiction, and his favorite author is James Patterson. He enjoys the multi-faceted aspect of literature.

“I love how there’s so many ways you can interpret it,” he said. “Someone can interpret it one way and another can interpret it another. And I like to discern the meaning of the text in front of me.”

“When I’m writing, I like to create fictional characters and pretend I’m in the place with them and get away from the world,” he added.

Having won the county competition, Cobb will move on to compete in the state spelling bee. If he wins, he’ll go on to represent Arkansas in the national spelling bee held in Washington D.C. If he is unable to attend the state competition, Morris, the runner-up of the Pope County Spelling Bee, will compete in his place.

“If I keep studying I think I could [make nationals],” he said. “If there’s no one super smart like Albert Einstein. We’ll see how far I go.”

In addition to Stobaugh, Cobb will get assistance from several teachers and employees at the school, including Kristen Ham, Jennifer Hull, and Carrie Drake, all of which he gave thanks to.

When asked how it felt to win the spelling bee, Cobb was, ironically, at a loss for words.

“It’s, I don’t have any words,” he said. He chuckled. “I’m in a spelling bee and can’t think of any words.”